http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...r-parramatta-eels-in-nrl-20160908-grbzpq.html
New CEO Bernie Gurr sees 'huge amount of upside' for Parramatta Eels in NRL
Incoming Parramatta CEO Bernie Gurr has no qualms about overseeing the rebuild of Parramatta on a fraction of their current budget, believing the Eels are finally positioned to fulfil their undoubted potential.
Gurr pipped former Melbourne Storm CEO Mark Evans for the top job and will begin the role next month after transferring from the United States.
Parramatta have lurched from one calamity to the next but Gurr, himself a former club CEO of the Roosters, believes there is a "huge amount of upside" at the Eels.
Speaking for the first time since his appointment, Gurr said his top priority was providing a proper governance structure to ensure success on and off the field.
"Frankly, it's a new start for Parramatta," Gurr told Fairfax Media from the US. "It's a clean slate for Parramatta from a football and leagues club side.
"The first thing is to give the fans at Parramatta a feeling of stability around the governance of the club. That appears to have caused the problems around Parramatta in recent years. You want to give the fans some comfort that there's hope, that you actually care for the club and want to provide good stability and governance.
"The second thing is [a] united club. You want [to] build trust by engaging fans, sponsors and stakeholders. You want to build that trust to create a united club. Thirdly, my view is it needs to be a fan-centric club. You've got a massive supporter base out there at Parramatta and it's ready to be tapped into. There are a lot of mechanisms and methods you can use to do [it], there's an opportunity to generate an enormous following by taking a fan-centric approach.
"The other thing you need to do is support the football program so you can have a consistently competitive football team. From what I've observed, Brad Arthur has certainly done that."
Gurr will have to achieve the aims on a much leaner budget after interim
Eels chairman Max Donnelly flagged his intention to slash the Parramatta Leagues Club funding to the football club – about $11 million per annum – in half.
"The reality is when you run any business you want to run it prudently," Gurr said.
"You want to focus on two things – revenue generation and cost management. Obviously, they have had some extraordinary costs there. If you suddenly take out payments to [Anthony] Watmough, [Kieran] Foran, [Will] Hopoate, legal fees and other payments, you're going to reduce the reliance on the leagues club. I'm totally on board with doing that."
Another priority is finding a general manager of football to provide support to Arthur and his staff.
The key thing in any organisation is to have excellent people working in an excellent organisational structure.
"It pulls all the different elements of your football department together, so it's a critical role," Gurr said. "There are no on-field goals, because they can go by the wayside with one injury to a key player.
"The key thing in any organisation is to have excellent people working in an excellent organisational structure. If we do that, good results will follow in all areas of the business. For the game of rugby league, particularly in the real heartland of western Sydney, a strong Parramatta is a major plus for the NRL."
Gurr marvelled at Arthur's ability to keep the side competitive when faced with a seemingly endless number of scandals.
"At one stage of the year they had a couple of million dollars of talent sitting on the sideline with Watmough, Foran, Norman not playing and Nathan Peats on the Gold Coast," Gurr said. "That's about a couple of million dollars of your salary cap not playing and yet they were still very competitive. If not for the 12-point deduction, they would have made the eight."
